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Fess-up Friday–kitchen edition

Today for Fess-up Friday we’re going to talk about kitchen disasters. My biggest disaster had to do with an egg. A hard-boiled egg. I made several in a pot of water for my kids and I. When I peeled the first egg I realized it wasn’t quite done. I’d heard that you shouldn’t put eggs in the shell in a microwave but I figured if I peeled half of the egg first it wouldn’t build up pressure (isn’t that why you don’t put eggs in the microwave?)

I was so very, very wrong. After about 15 seconds the egg exploded. And I don’t just mean it popped and fizzled. It was like an egg bomb went off. The egg itself was so pulverized that there were microscopic pieces of egg everywhere. It also blew the microwave door open with such force that one set of hinges was ripped off.

I had to replace the microwave.

Please learn from my idiocy.

What’s your biggest kitchen disaster? Was it a bad meal or are you ignorant like me when it comes to equipment? It’s time to fess up!

21 thoughts on “Fess-up Friday–kitchen edition”

My biggest kitchen disaster was when I was making acorn squash in the oven. I forgot to put water in the bottom of the glass baking dish before putting it in the oven so I added some after it had been in there awhile. BIG mistake.

The glass exploded. It literally sounded like a bomb had went off and there was glass everywhere. Luckily no one was hurt but I do believe I suffered from PTSD a little bit.

Holy cow. I won't share this with my 13 year old, as I am guessing he would want to try the experiment himself…

My biggest disaster: I was recovering from back surgery, and had spent quite a bit of time putting together a giant pan of lasagna. I felt guilty as I had not been cooking, and was able to manage it if I sat down and rested every five minutes. It was far too heavy for me to lift, let alone bend over and put in the oven, so my 9 year old son helped me out. The smell of it baking made our mouths water, we couldn't wait to enjoy it. My son offered to take it out of the oven, and it slipped from his hands and dumped out all over the floor, the glass baking pan broke in several pieces.

I have done the same thing….Glad to hear that I am not alone. My experience was putting a pyrex, water, and an egg in the microwave at the same time. In my defense I was 15 but still NOT a good idea. (and yes the microwave and pyrex had to to be replaced)

Well we've exploded baked potatoes in the oven, but the oven remained in tact. My worst disaster was trying a new crockpot recipe. I browned the meat in the morning, assembled all the ingredients, then turned on the crockpot. NOT noticing that the plug was turned off (one of those fancy ones with a red switch). My husband got home and said, hmmm can't smell dinner, I said, oh it's okay – it's been cooking all day. WRONG-O. 🙁

My kids make scrambled eggs in the microwave every morning. I guess the key is scrambling them first?I made Rhodes Rolls once and forgot to take the saran wrap off before putting them in the oven. Nice!

A couple of months ago I blew up a glass lid in my oven. First of all, I left it sitting on a hot burner until it was seriously RED hot. I thought, "Ohh, this can't be good, I think I will put it on an oven rack to cool down." So I did, and a few minutes later I head it explode. I really miss that lid.

This one is totally lame compared to explosions and broken pieces…but a disaster all the same.

You know that monkey bread that is made with Rhodes rolls? You put the frozen rolls in a pan the night before, covered in a gooey mess. The recipe called for a box of pudding, so I prepared a box of pudding, not knowing you only need the powder. The prepraed pudding caused the rolls to rise rapidly, spilling over the pan like a science experiment. And the next morning you couldn't see an inch of oven at the bottom. I had dough EVERYWHERE.

I felt dumb because we had guests and that was supposed to be the easiest breakfast treat ever!!

My worst disaster was the Christmas after I had my son. He was 2-1/2 months old at the time. I wanted to make a turkaling for Christmas dinner. You start with a cornish hen, debone it and stuff it with stuffing. Next you debone a duck, cram in the cornish hen, stuff around it. Keep on with deboning, craming previous birds and stuffing with a capon, goose, and turkey. It took me 3 days to do just the prep work. The night before, I went to cook it and realized that I didn't have a pan big enough. My husband ended up wrapping it in layers and layers of tin foil and putting it on a cookie sheet. Around 3 am my son woke up to be fed. I went into the kitchen to get his bottle and there was thick smoke and flames pouring out the door of my brand new stove. I yelled for my husband. He opened the door and used a fire extinguisher on the turkaling! Needless to say, I just cried….

Once when I was making homemade French fries I used a cookie sheet without sides. That in and of itself wasn't a problem, but the recipe calls for olive oil on the fries. I guess I used a little too much oil because about 20 minutes after putting the pan in the oven, I looked over and saw flames inside the oven and smoke pouring out!

My mom was gone and my dad was outside mowing the lawn. I was going to reach for the fire extingusiher but just turned the oven off and thankfully it stopped the fire- I had images in my mind of the house burning down!

My dad wasn't too pleased when he found out and he wouldn't let me make french fries for a while after that and yeah, the fries were burnt to a crisp. 🙁

My mom did that when I was in like 1st grade and told her as we were walking out the door that I needed a boiled egg for school. This was a LONG time ago, when microwaves first came out…they had to have it fixed. It was cheaper to do that rather than buy a new one!

My worst would be when our home was being listed to sell someone called saying they were coming in just a few minutes. I hurried and threw all the dishes in the sink into the oven (you know, since the dishwasher was already full). I of course completely forgot about them and didn't think of them again until the next time I turned on the oven to bake something. Yup, smelly, thick plastic goo all over my oven. Ick! Won't do that again!

I can give you two. When I was a teenager my parents went out of town and I was put in charge of making dinner. I made mashed potatoes in the pressure cooker like my mother did. Only I didn't know when it was over you had to release the pressure before taking off the kid,

Exploded mashed potatoes all over my parents' kitchen. I don't cook potatoes like that anymore.

#2- I was being lazy and cooking some chicken in the microwave. Only I forgot to hit 50% power. Chicken turned into smelly, smoking black goo and ruined the microwave.

Fortunately, I learned that egg lesson so long ago that the microwave still had a dial on it! (Remember that microwave we had?) We had a babysitter over, I think it was Gina Lubnik, and I decided to cook an egg in the microwave. Not only did it explode like yours, the whole house was filled with the smell of sulfuric rotten egg (the wasn't rotten–it just smelled that way after detonating). Of course, we had no air freshener, so Gina and I ended up using some of Mom's perfume to try to freshen the kitchen air. I guess you weren't there? I dont' remember you being in this scenerio at all.

I was just sitting here feeling a little smug because other than a few dropped and broken dishes while pregnant, I can' think of any really dramatic cooking mishps. But then I realized that a) I tend to block out those kinds of memories, so worse things than I can remember may have happened, and b) I don't cook much. Less risked, less gained.

I think there is a way to get those photos off your camera. You'll need a device called a "card reader." Then you'll remove the card from your camera (get a teen to help you) and insert it into the card reader, then insert that into a USB port. Then you should be able to copy the images onto your hard drive.

I had an egg explosion too! Only mine was from leaving a pot of boiling eggs on the stove while we went to church for three to four hours. As I was sitting in the third hour of church, I remembered! Oh no! I grabbed my husband, the kids and we rushed home. I wasn't sure if we'd see a fire engine when we pulled up to the house or not, but I knew it would be bad. As we rounded the final corner, the coast was clear. However, the entire house was smokey and eggs had exploded everywhere, and even hit the 9 foot ceiling in the kitchen. The new home smell was replaced with rotten eggs. Eventually, the scent went away, but ten years later, I still look up in my kitchen and can see a small spot of egg.